Coloring Blog by Päivi

When you feel difficult to express yourself verbally or visually, this is the exact palette for you.

This palette is going to open the gates of your creativity and self expression. It will improve your communication skills and you will feel more comfortable when working as part of a team. Meeting other people will be easier too.

These colors will also give you more self-confidence to perform in front of people. The colors will expand your potential but at the same time they will make you feel safe.

If you feel annoyed, for whatever reason, this is the color palette for getting over it.

These colors are very sensitive and they will calm down your heated feelings little by little. They will help you to get rid of mental debris and negative thoughts and they will help you to think more clearly.

This palette is very balancing. When you color with this palette you start looking at things differently and put them into perspective. Thus your anger will fade away and will be replaced by serenity and peace.

Find a picture which brings you joy and is quite simple to color too. When you feel irritated you propably cannot concentrate on very small details. Try to spread colors peacefully and remember to breath deeply.

This is a fabulous color palette for evoking your intuition. We all have our intuitive capacity, but in this hard and rational world we sometimes forget to listen our subconscious minds.

These colors will relax and at the same time brighten your mind so that it is easier to get in touch with your deeper essence. These colors will help you to listen and trust your intuition. This palette is very spiritual and profound, and it can help you to reach the collective unconscious, a place of transcendental wisdom common to all humans.

This palette goes well with a detailed coloring picture. Concentrating wholly on coloring will strengthen the impact of this color palette. Let all your thoughts fly away and immerse yourself in these colors only.

Feel free to share Mental Color Palettes on social media. Use the tag #mentalcolorpalette and a link to this blog post.

Have you recently or are you at the present going through some hard times in a relationship and feel your heart is broken?

This color palette is designed to comfort you and give you hope that you can survive through a difficult period of time. These colors will also give you joy, but in a very gentle way. They heal your heart and soul and strengthen your self-belief.

Coloring with this palette reminds you that you are precious and loved, no matter what the circumstances.

Find a picture that you like and that is somewhat detailed. Flowers are good, because now you need something nice and beautiful in your life. This color palette is also very flowery so the combination of this palette and a flower coloring picture is a natural choice.

Feel free to share Mental Color Palettes on social media. Use the tag #mentalcolorpalette and a link to this blog post.

Then this color palette is just for you! You can also benefit from looking at the colored picture daily, so it could be a good idea to put it on the fridge door, for example.

This color combination will help you to decrease your eating or drinking, if you are in the habit of eating or drinking too much. It reduces your appetite. It will also give you strength for your process of weight management.

If you are suffering from worrying and sorrowing even if you have no real reason to do so, then this color palette might give you some relief. These color combinations help you to get things in perspective and to trust the future.

When you color with this palette you will feel more confident and safe. Your mind is calming down from those unnecessary restless thoughts. You will start to feel that everything is okay - everything is just the way it needs to be.

The most suitable coloring pictures with this palette are the ones which have quite large and simple areas. Also very good for this purpose are the shapes that have portions heading outwards from the center, like rays.

I recommend using markers, since that way the coloring is quite quick.

Feel free to share Mental Color Palettes on social media. Use the tag #mentalcolorpalette and a link to this blog post.

If you are suffering from any kind of mental issues, I am quite sure that coloring will give you at least some relief. Keep coloring books, pens and pencils always available so that it is easier to start coloring, even if you feel totally exhausted and depressed.

You do not have to color for a long time or color complicated pictures to get the good effects of coloring. If you have not colored before, please, at least give it a try. Choose a picture which feels good to you and is more or less simple.

You might ask why you should color if you suffer from a mental health issue. I will give you five reasons.

1. Coloring balances your mind

Coloring is like meditation. You can really clear your mind when you focus on the color and on the movement of your hand. Coloring enables you to be present in the moment, which makes it easier to be aware of your thoughts and then let them go.

2. Beautiful images will uplift your mood

All beauty around us will lift our moods. When you are looking at a nice picture while coloring, you will feel better from the very first moment. Lovely lines and wonderful shapes nurture your heart and mind.

3. You can get rid of negative thoughts

It is easier to think positive when you do something that you enjoy. When you look at a nice picture and choose nice colors you can change your thoughts for the better, too, little by little.

4. An easy way to feel yourself successful

Anyone can color, and it is an easy way of seeing your handiwork. It feels good to see that you really did something very pretty all by yourself. If you think you do not know how to color, you can use the color palettes to ease your color choises. For example Zen Garden color palettes are good for balancing your mind.

5. Colors will heal your mind

It is not insignificant what colors you choose when coloring. Color is electromagnetic radiation in the spectrum of light. This radiation effects not only your brains but also your whole body. And of course it has a huge impact on your mind. Every color has its own wavelength and so every color affects us in a different way.

This color combination is designed to balance your mind. It is especially suitable for you if you are angry or if you for some other reason feel unbalanced or are upset about something.

This palette will help you to calm your mind but at the same time it will bring you hope and joy. It reminds you to love yourself and to appreciate all the good things you have in your life. At least for the moment when you are coloring you can feel everything is fine.

This palette has a very healing effect on discomfort. These colors refresh your soul in a very gentle way. If it feels hard to start coloring because you feel bad, for whatever reasons, these are good colors to choose.

Listen carefully yourself to know how much you need of each color. For example, if you do not feel good with pink shades, then use them sparingly. But it is important to use all the colors in the palette if you want the full impact of them.

Feel free to share Mental Color Palettes on social media. Use the tag #mentalcolorpalette and a link to this blog post.

They are ready-made color palettes to make color choices easier. In these palettes, there is always a certain theme helping you to feel better.

The first palette is inspired by the 1960s and 70s gig and festival posters. Groovy was the word for the 1960s "cool". If something was groovy, it was (among other things) marvelous, wonderful, excellent, hip and trendy.

Use this color palette when you want to let the inner child run wild and get crazy with colors. Using these bold color combinations makes you feel very much alive and makes your creativity flow. You can do nothing but smile when you color with this palette.

Groovy colors are very rhythmic. Try them out and see what is the right rhythm for you. With this palette anything can be colored with any color! The further the color is from the reality, the groovier the result!

Markers are well suited to this palette, because with them, you can color big surfaces quickly, and the colors are intense and strong. Eg. Sharpie markers have a lot of good, groovy colors. Let the colors glide on the paper, do not worry about a thing. But be careful – you can get addicted to this palette! Coloring with these colors is simply so much fun!

With this palette you will get poster-like results. While coloring, you may want to ponder what your ”poster's” message is. What does it tell you, or what is it that you want to tell the world through it.

Feel free to share Mental Color Palettes on social media. Use the tag #mentalcolorpalette and a link to this blog post.

Coloring affirmations, sayings and quotes is a lot of fun, and also very energizing. Here are a few tips how coloring them can make your soul smile.

Take a coloring picture with a message which resonates with you. Take a phrase that you feel you need right now.

For every word, as well as for the area surrounding it, choose the colors that feel good to you. There are no right or wrong colors to a particular word. Pick colors that feel as if they belonged to this word, but the most important thing is that they feel right to your heart. If you can not decide which color to select, listen your inner voice in peace and quiet for a moment, and let the colors appear in your mind. Then take the first color you see.

Try to choose the colors so that you do not think about coloring the whole image, but explore every word and the elements around it one at a time. With colors you can also highlight words that seem to be particularly important to you.

Coloring affirmations and sayings will help you in two ways:

1. You will really get the message.

When coloring a particular word, you have to focus on the word and its meaning properly. This way, you will really take in the message, and it has more long-term effects on your inner self than if you just read it. You may even generate new insights and perspectives related to the text.

2. The colors and the words will lift your mood.

When the colors are comfortable for you, you will enjoy the coloring more. The good feeling will spread to your mind and body, and inspiring words will flow to your mind with the aid of the wonderful colors. Let the colors take care of your soul at the same time as you feel the harmony of the words. The more you are present at the moment, the more empowering the effect will be.

Detailed, elaborate coloring pictures are good, because you have to color them very slowly and really concentrate on them. This way the influence is more powerful because both the colors and the words have time to be absorbed into your subconscious mind. But even if you prefer to color simpler pictures, you can color them slowly and quietly, so that you can get the most out of them.

The extra benefit is that the finished coloring picture makes a great poster to put on the wall. When you have colored the affirmation or saying all by yourself, it will have a more profound meaning to you. By watching the image, you can remind yourself of the same feeling that you had when coloring the picture.

At best, coloring the affirmations, quotes and sayings and watching the finished picture will bring strength and joy into your life, and make you believe in yourself and the future.

Extra Tip: You can color this kind of a picture for someone who is important to you. If you feel that a close friend needs a bit of comfort, choose an appropriate text and color it with the colors you think will lift his or her mood.

When it is time to go to bed at night, all kinds of thoughts begin to spin wildly and will not go away. It is difficult to get to sleep, when the brain goes into overdrive. The mind wanders its own paths, and the body is full of energy, even though it should prepare itself to relax and calm down for sleep.

Does this sound familiar?

I have a tendency to dwell on the things on my mind at night. Falling asleep might take me hours. It is really annoying, and it puts additional strain on the already stressed mind.

Because I am crazy about coloring myself, I began to study and test how the coloring could help me to fall asleep.

As a result, I developed an easy and convenient way for all insomnia sufferers to fall asleep more easily. You should use it as regularly as possible, preferably every night.

Try the Sleep Well coloring this evening:

Find a coloring page where the areas are long and narrow. I am talking about an image, where you can find a kind of a stream that the pen can easily follow.

Take out your gel pens and pick only the dark shades of blue and violet. Blue-green shades are also good. Three to five pens are enough.

Put the coloring picture and the pencils ready next to the bed. Please set aside about half an hour for the coloring, which means you might want to go to the bed a little earlier than usual.

Choose the colors randomly. Pick the pens so that you can not see them.

Color at a steady pace. Let your thoughts merge with the color, one stroke at a time. Just focus on the coloring and enjoy the colors carrying you towards a good night's sleep.

Because you found this blog post, I think that you have a tough and busy everyday life, too. Maybe you have a demanding job, or maybe your life is burdensome in other ways.

After a hectic day your brain is on overdrove, your heart might beat irregularly, the blood pressure is high and you feel uneasy. If you get your body as well as your mind to unwind as soon as possible after your day at work, you will have the whole evening to do something more pleasurable. For example, you can have time for your hobbies, meet your friends, or do something else that you enjoy.

A good and an efficient way to calm yourself is to color.

When you focus on the coloring, you tend to turn off your unpleasant thoughts and thus your brain gets a rest. As a result, your mind as well as your body relax and calm down.

A few more tips to get additional benefits:

Choose a mandala or a repeating pattern that you find beautiful

Color it with green-toned markers or gel pens

A pleasant picture is the most important starting point. Simply by looking at the beautiful picture your mind begins to soothe, little by little.

Mandalas and repetitive patterns are the best coloring pictures to quiet the mind. Repetitive, mechanical action helps you to focus on this moment.

Different shades of green have a calming and soothing effect. Besides them, you can also use shades of blue and violet .

With gel pens, you get intense colors easily. When coloring with gel pens, you have to make quite small strokes, which has a calming effect as well.

With alcohol markers, you get a smooth and beautiful surface, which helps to clear your mind.

With Sharpie markers, (and other similar markers) you can get a very smooth surface. The point is not that duplication should be avoided. On the contrary, the more layers you make during the coloring, the more even the surface will get. Apply the new layer always as a part of the previous one, and even on top of it. Continue that way, filling the entire surface, and there will be no unpleasant blotches.

You can also color the entire area once and then the whole area again. It does not matter if the color dries in the meanwhile.

In any case, color the paper as many times as it takes to saturate the paper. Check from the other side of the paper if it is saturated enough.

Upper area is colored with just a single layer. The lower area is colored so that the paper is saturated, which took about three layers of color.

A saturated coloring requires a little more effort, but the coloring becomes much more meaningful when the outcome is wonderfully smooth and the color has been properly absorbed into the paper.

Here you see the finished picture. Clouds and the sky have been colored using a Sharpie the way I have described here.

You can achieve an interesting combination with alcohol markers and gel pens when you first color the whole image with markers and then, on top of that, color the details with gel pens.

The left side of the figure is made with the markers only, and the right side has been finished with gel pens.

Please note that the background color may change because of gel pens in an unexpected way. Sometimes the result might be a very marvelous shade. You should therefore try the colors on a different piece of paper first, if you do not want to be surprised.

With this technique, you can have a vivid , and to my opinion, also a more balanced outcome than you could with gel pens only.

Are you already familiar with rainbow gel pens? They are otherwise normal gel pens, but one pen contains several colors.

When you color with a rainbow pen, you can never be sure when and how the tone changes. There is no point even trying to design the colors of the image. Wonderfully relaxing, since there is no need to think about the color choices!

Rainbow gel pens are particularly suitable for abstract mandalas and patterns. All the examples here are colored with one or two gel pens only.

In this example the background has been hatched with alcohol pens. This requires only three different colors. Colors blend nicely on paper and new shades will form.

This technique was originated by accident, when I planned to color the background in turquoise, but the ink was just about to end. Then I just drew lines as long as that ink lasted, and the rest of the background I hatched with other colors.

This style is especially suitable for a big, blank background, and the result is very impressive. You can create different kind of moods and depth perceptions, depending on the direction of the lines.